Case for Clinical Care Residency Programs

At Cooley Dickinson Hospital, nurses typically start working on a medical/surgical unit. As their careers progress, they move to specialty areas that require a higher level skill set, such as Home Health Care, Accountable Care Management, Critical Care, and the Childbirth Center. Each of these areas at the hospital and VNA and Hospice will be losing large numbers of experienced nurses in the coming years.

Less experienced nurses and new graduates will participate in residency programs to extend their experiential education in specialty areas. Veteran nurses will have the opportunity to share their experience, ensuring that their wellspring of knowledge doesn’t retire when they do.

By investing in the continuing education of our mid-career and newly graduated nurses, we will address the hospital's acute need to retain nurses with higher-level skills and are confident the program will increase employee satisfaction. Patients, of course, will be the ultimate beneficiaries of these residencies, as they receive high-level care from an increasingly stable nursing force.